With Albania selecting their artist and plenty of other countries with annoucements and selections upcoming, keep up to date with all things Eurovision in this one-stop resource point.
While more countries seem to be taking on the internal selection trajectory to find their entry, Newsletter Editor Ben Robertson argues they are heading down the wrong tree. They bore him at least. In Robertson’s Reflection Ben argues why he wishes countries could just wait until they had the song to sing first.
A great casing point of this is what has just happened in Ireland. Last year by selecting Nicky Byrne yes, we had somebody who had a vocal we were worried about, but he was a household name and was already prepared with a song that was perfectly inoffensive. He also did graft around enough National Finals to show the heart was in the right place. This year they are selecting somebody most Irish people will not know by name and has had a very sheltered growing up process in the music industry. While I can argue Brendan Murray is more likely to score better than Nicky did, regardless it seems to a step backwards for the reputation of Eurovision even further for Ireland.
The next edition of the ESC Insight Newsletter will be published by John Paul Lucas as Ben Robertson focuses on other projects for 2017. Expect the first edition of the new era to hit in mid-January.
Thanks for all your hard work on the newsletter, Ben. Maybe now you can get (some of) your life back.
At this point Ireland might as Well not turn up, most fans seem to have an opinion about the entry before it’s even been sent.